Description:

• Trees or shrubs, variously hairy
• Leaves alternate, rarely subopposite, petiolate, entire or coarsely toothed
• Flowers usually yellow or white, bi- or unisexual, subsessile or pedicellate; borne in terminal or axillary dichotomous corymbs, panicles or subglobose clusters of cymes, the branches scorpioid, inflorescences ebracteate
• Calyx tubular or campanulate; tube as long as corolla tube; lobes 3-5, shorter than tube, ovate; persistent, accrescent
• Corolla white or yellow, with tube funnel- or salver-shaped; lobes 5, rarely 3-8, oblong, erect, spreading or reflexed, imbricate or somewhat contorted in bud
• Stamens arising in mouth of corolla tube, included or exserted; filaments linear, glabrous or pubescent at base; anthers oblong
• Ovary 4-locular with a thick, fleshy wall and a single, erect ovule in each locule; style terminal, 2-branched, with each branch 2-fid; stigmatic branches clavate or linear
• Fruit a drupe, surrounded at base by a saucer-shaped calyx, with 1 stone, up to 4-locular but only 1 or 2 locules fertile
• x = 7, 8 (6) (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Cordia L.
  • Linnaeus: 190 (1753)
  • Linnaeus: 87 (1754)
  • Candolle: 471 (1845)
  • Bentham: 838 (1876)
  • Boissier: 123 (1879)
  • Gürke: 81 (1897)
  • Wright: 4 (1904)
  • Taton: 3 (1971)
  • Warfa: 1 (1988)
  • Martins: 60 (1990)
  • Al-Shehbaz: 43 (1991)
  • Miller: 8 (1991)
  • Verdcourt: 3 (1991)
  • Riedl: 68 (1997)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 250-300, in tropical regions of both hemispheres, mainly America
• Southern Africa: Species 6, widespread except Northern and Western Cape